We are remodelling our home and I am planning to put 5.1 home theater in our new family room and master bedroom. I will be putting all the AV equipment in some space under the stairs and running cable form there. The idea is to avoid having equipment (apart from TVs and speakers) in the rooms.

My AV equipment will consist of DVD, Comcast DVR (includes an HDMI out), VCR, laptop, XM satellite radio (will run antenna to the roof), iPod & dock, receiver and some kind of matrix controller.

Any recommendations for a matrix controller that can take multiple audio/video inputs and produce multiple outputs e.g. broadcast iPod in to all outputs or have DVD (and associated audio) playing to one TV with cable (and associated audio) playing to another?

So far my plan is to run HDMI, component, VGA (for PC), couple of of Cat 5e and twisted pair to where the TV will be; twisted pair to each of the speaker locations; coax to the subwoofer location. Is there anything I have forgotten?

Also I plan to have an IR 'eye' to pick up signals and relay them to some kind of IR blaster under the stairs beside the equipment. What's the best kind of cable to use to send those signals? Is one strand from Cat5e enough?

Any other ideas or comments?